Four Zen monks were meditating in a monastery. All of a sudden the prayer flag on the roof started flapping.
The younger monk came out of his meditation and said: "Flag is flapping"
A more experienced monk said: "Wind is flapping"
A third monk who had been there for more than 20 years said: "Mind is flapping."
The fourth monk who was the eldest said, visibly annoyed: "Mouths are flapping!"

Friday, October 16, 2009

Re-Blogging Brad Warner

Well, today could be a big day--or maybe it will be a very dull day where nobody reads this or cares. I'm not sure I care, for that matter.

But a blog that I love to post comments on has officially stopped accepting any kind of comments, so I decided to open up a new blog to those of us who would like to continue commenting on Hardcore Zen, Brad Warner's blog where he writes about zen among other topics.

This is a lazy first post because I'm just not sure anybody gives a crap about this, including me. But maybe I'm wrong--maybe others want a space (unmoderated of course) where we can continue to post insane ramblings inspired by Brad Warner. Feel free to join me there--I have no interest in controlling or changing or moderating my blog, so we can make of it what everyone wants.

And no doubt, if enough of us gather and write things here, Brad will be reading. I don't think he can resist.

3 Comments:

I think that Brad Warner's decision is admirable, if a little jarring to some sense of "net community". I quote his web log, Hardcore Zen [1]:

-----------------------I could go in and monitor the comments. But do you know how much time, effort and energy that would take? [explitive] I have a life to live. I try to spend as little time each day in front of computers as possible. As a writer and as a guy who books his own speaking gigs I already have to spend a lot of time here. When I'm done at what I absolutely have to do at the computer for the day, believe me, I am done! -----------------------

I suppose, one could like to respond to his energetic commentary with an argument of similar ... energeticness. I think it's appropriate to let him take this way with his own blog, though.

I've scanned some of the comments, there, myself, and wondered if there was some sort of Fanclub that I hadn't received the memo for -- and not been distressed if there would seem to be, to be sure. I think it was a whole lot of "I love me" fanclubs, and I'm afraid I've not always been free of a similar trait.

In my conception of it, Brad Warner has stated his independence from the internet fan-base volunteering itself to respond his web log. I may hesitate to leave my statement, as such, as it is, for I do certainly not want to seem as if I was suggesting any manner or form of a popular coups d'etat about it. It's his own web log, in a manner about which I have no basis for judgment.

Secondly, I would like to say that I appreciate the concept of "reblogging", though, in some sense of rational democracy. However, if he does not want to enable the comments on his web log, I myself will not be one to try to find a back-door about it, quite frankly.

I think the reblogging gesture is great, as a gesture -- and this has been a statement of one person's own opinions, as I shall not hesitate to mention.